New Delhi: With teacher shortage and training continuing to be a big challenge, HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday favoured a solution which creates a pool of educators with expertise in different subjects and languages.

"There is need to create a pool of pedagogy to address the present challenges and realities," he said.

This pool of teachers should be easily accessible, he said at the 'International policy dialogue forum on teacher's challenges for education for all in India' here.

In this context, he called for an UNESCO round table to figure out the needs of global community and children.

Sibal said unless the quality of teachers is addressed, especially in poor countries like India which has huge demographic dividend, any development process would be hard to achieve.

He said the pool of pedagogy could help in addressing the issue of teacher shortage and quality aspect with the benefits accruing to the students getting access to the best subject teacher possible.

The minister also emphasised on redefining the process of teaching.

He said the continuous and comprehensive evaluation programme in CBSE schools should not remain confined only to students but should also cover the teachers to help them understand where they stand.

The should be a change in mindset as the best brains move to investment banks, business enterprises, multinationals when they "should have (rather) invested in capital asset which is the mind of the young child". At the same time, the state governments who are largely involved in teacher recruitment should ensure "quality prospects" to attract the best minds into the profession, the minister said.

He said there is no uniformity in terms of recruitment, salary, benefits of teachers at present and these issues should be addressed.